Cloth-treating machine.



PATENTED NOV. 24, 1903.

D. GESSNER. CLOTH TREATING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED APR. 4. 1899 N0 MODEL.

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UNITE STATES Patented November 24, 1903.

PATENT OFFICE.

DAVID GESSNER, OF WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

'CLO'I l-I-TREATING MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 744,744, dated. November 24, 1903. Application filed April 4,1899. Serial No. 711672. (No model.) i

To all whom it may concern: 1

Be it known that I, DAVID GESSNEE, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Worcester, in the county of Worcester and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Cloth- Treating Machines, of which the following is a specification. I

In-my PatentNo. 387,288, ofAugust'7, 1888, I have described a process which consists of pressing the cloth and then rnoistening and steaming it while itis held under pressure by pressing the same in contact with the moistening apron or jacket between two heated surfaces, and in my Patent No. 387,287 I have described a construction or machine by which this process may be carried out. In that machine the cloth first receives a dry pressure between two heated and dry pressing-surfaces and next undergoes a moist pressure. In this first pressing process between the dry pressing-surfaces one of the surfaces is a staiionary bed-plate, and the other is a traveling heated cylinder carrying the cloth, so that the clothundergoes a certain amount of friction or stretch during the first pressing, which is incidental to all rotary pressing when no apron is ,used. The cloth pressed upon such a machine is finished satisfactorily to the mills; but when this same cloth reaches the trade, who make it up into suits, it has to be shrunk suificiently to take up all the stretch causedv by thefirst dry pressing against the stationary .pressing bed. On light-weight goods,which are of sleazy, flimsy character,with little body to'them,this stretch amounts to more than it does on heavy-weight goods, which have more body, and Ltherefore construct the machine described in my Patent No. 565,072 with a iew of pressing these lighter materials without-in any way stretching them in the pressing process, because the endless apron over which the cloth passes in that machine sustains the friction and pullproduced by the stationary bedplate underneath.- In that machine of Patout No. 565,072, therefore, the stretching of the cloth incident to thefordinary rotary When goods are pressed and finished in the mills either on an ordinary rotary press or on an apron-press, as described in my Patent N 0.

565,072, the mills prefer not to steam thegoods Very much after pressing, for fear of removing too much of the finish imparted by those machines, because those goods have to pass through several hands before reaching theclothier who cuts the cloth up into suits,

and consequently have to stand a good deal of handlingin the meantime. Therefore the mills prefer to impart a dry hard pressing to insure a firm handle of the. cloth for some time to come, and it is customary to leave it to the clothierto either do the final sponging or steaming himself or have it done by one of the many establishments in operation for that purpose in all of our big manufacturing cities. the cloth or finish it atall. They simply roll the cloth fairly loose upon a perforated copper roll,winding it thereupon spirally, and blow steam through it until it has penetrated the fabric thoroughly all over. This steaming These spongers do not press a process as carried out by the spongers to thoroughly shrink the cloth in both width and length at the same time-removes the finishso laboriously imparted to the clothby the mills, and when applied to face goods in which the nap is supposed to lie smoothly in one direction this steaming raises thenap and roughs it up, giving the fabric an uncouth and raw appearance, which the 'clothier's are forever objectingto. Constant complaint is made by the clothiers of this fact when the goods are returned to them from the spongersprevious to cutting up into suits,:as the goods,

lose too much in handle and appearance during this process of steaming or shrinking on the perforated copper .roll, and the spongers are frequently asked to refinish the shrunk cloth, but in such a way that it shall not show which will show spots if water is afterward dropped upon it. Putting the cloth after sponging between cold plates and papers is, moreover, a costly process, as it takes lots of time to fold the goods, and as the cloth has to remain in such press for half a day or more a sponging establishment would be required to have a great many of these cold presses on hand to do much refinishing.

To enable the spongers to refinish their cloth after steam-shrinking it, I have made the improvement shown and described in this.

application.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure l is an elevation of one end of the machine. Fig. 2 is a horizontal section on the line A B of Fig. 1, and Fig. 3 is a vertical section on the line C D of Fig. 1.

The following description is to be read in connection with the specification of my said Patent No. 565,072.

The following description of the supports at one end of the machine will suffice for both ends, since the supports at the opposite end are-the same.

a is an end frame fastened to one end of a base-plate b.

c is a bracket extending rearwardly from the frame, upon which the rolling and folding apparatuses for the cloth are mounted. d is another bracket resting on top of the end frames a, near the rear, facing upwardly and carrying on its top sliding frame e, carrying a pair of rollersfand g, with a trough h placed under one of them.

1 is the main or pressing cylinder, and Z is its bed-plate, which can be moved vertically up and down, being guided in this direction by fork -guides m. At n the bed plate is shackled to links 72-, which have screwthreaded connectionsp to unite them with the shackles 0, which at q are pivotally connected to carriages 1", that move in slidess of the frames at, so that when the shaft 23 is turned so as to bring the cam 25 into the position shown in the drawings it will force (through pillow-blocks u) the carriages 0' upward, bringing the bed-plate Zinto a pressing position. The manner in which the shaft 23 is operated need not be reiterated here, as it has been fully described in my Patent No. 565,071 of the same date, August 4, 1896, which was pending at the same time as my Patent No. 565,072, above referred to.

'v is an endless apron passing between the cylinder 2' and the bed-plate lover the cylinder to in the direction of the arrows, the cylinder to being driven from the main cylinder 2', as shown in my Patent No. 565,071.

at is a swivel-roller on the outside of the apron running in the bracket 3 which is pivoted at z in its middle and at the middle of the under side of the gird a, so as to act as an automatic regulator toinsure the apron o to run straight. 1 is another roller mounted upon a carriage 2, which slides upon ways 3 on a bracket 4 and is operated by a handwheel 5, so as to serve as a take-up for the slack of the apron, which in the course of time is produced by the friction exerted upon the inner side of the apron between it and the bed-plate Z.

6 is another endless seamless apron which runs around the pressing-cylinder t and the rollerf, which is mounted on top of the sliding frames 6 in detachable fixed bearings 7. Pressed against the apron 6 from below is the roller g, having its bearings in the lever 8, which is fulcrumed on the sliding frame 6 at 9 and is adjusted vertically by the handwheel 10, screw-threaded upon the spindle 11, pivotally connected to the elongation e of the sliding frame 6. The frame 6 is moved toward and from the cylinder upon its guides by a threaded rod d, carried by the bracket d and engaging a nut or projection 6 secured to the frame 6 by the setscrew 6 The outer end of said threaded rod carries the worm-wheel 14. If' a wrench be applied to the square of the spindle 12, which carries a worm 13,which meshes into the worm-wheel 14, the sliding frame 6 can be moved horizontally toward or away from the cylinder i, and thus the apron 6 can be slackened or kept taut at will. The lower part of the roller g will be immersed in water contained in the trough h, and the water taken up by the roller 9 will be transferred to the apron 6, so as to wet the same. By turning the hand-wheel 10 so as to force the lever 8 downward at that end the roller 9 will be pressed upward against the rollerf, and the water carried up by the roller 9 and communicated to the apron 6 will be squeezed out of the same to a greater or less degree, as the operator may see tit, leaving the apron 6 merely damp, with the superfluous water all wrung out of it, when in its travel it comesforward into contact with the cloth 15, which passes between this apron 6 and the apron u, that travels over the bed-plate.

16 is an open steaming device attached to the frame a, which is adapted to thoroughly shrink the cloth in both length and width.

24 is a radiator consisting ofa coil of steampipes that may be heated either directly by a supply of fresh steam or by the exhaust-steam that has passed through the cylindert' and the bed-plate Z. The object of this radiator is to keep the apron '0 dry in case it should when handling very light fabrics become moistened by the steam generated by the heated pressing-cylinder t' pressing against the wet apron (3. This apron 7) even when pressing somewhat heavier goods would nevertheless absorb some of the moisture from the wet apron 6 beyond the edges of the cloth, which at all times would be several inches narrower than either the apron 6 or apron u, so that there would be nothing to prevent these aprons being pressed together whenever there was no cloth between. Keeping the apron 7) thus dry at all times will give that side of the cloth which lies next to ita Very much higher finishand likewise drier finish than the upper side of the cloth receives which lies next.

the wet apron 6 in pressing.

18 and 19 are respectively'a cloth-roll and a folder, which may be constructed and operated in any suitable manner.

The operation is as follows: Before refinishing the cloth upon this machineit may be either rolled upon aperforated copper 'cylinder and thoroughly steamed in that condition, as heretofore, or the. shrink may be taken out of the cloth by leading it through an open steaming device, as 16, for instance, attached to the frames at of my machine, which will thoroughly shrink the cloth in both length and width, and then the cloth may receive another pressing between the aprono above the bed-plate Z and the wet apron 6 around the steam-heated cylinder 1', the nap of the fabric after being steamed being smoothed down again or laid by the brush 17 immediately before the cloth enters between v the dry and wet pressing-surfaces of my machine; By using an endless moist water-absorbing apron like 6 and wetting it thoroughly with ordinary cold water andthen uniformly squeezing the water out of-it, as

' shown in this machine, this apron can be kept more moist than if steam only were applied to it instead of water. When the cloth leaves the machine, the nap will not only be laid and the luster and the face be made waterproof, but another pressing is imparted to 1. In a rotary cloth-press in combination a cylinder, a presser, two aprons running between the same, and a combined apron takeup and moistening device, substantially as described.

2. In a rotary cloth-press in combination, a

cylinder, a presser, two aprons running between the same, apron-moistening apparatus and means whereby the samemay be adjusted for different degrees of moistening, substantially as described.

3. In a rotary cloth-press, in combination, a cylinder, a presser, two absorbent aprons running between the same, means whereby the cloth is guided between said aprons, means whereby one of said aprons is moistened and means whereby the other of said aprons is d ried; both said moistening and drying means being other than the presser or cylinder; whereby the cloth is pressed between two aprons one of which is maintained moist'and the other maintained dry.

4. In a cloth-treating machine, the combination of cloth pressing devices, an apron passing between said pressing devices and a combined apron take-up and moistening device.

5. In a rotary cloth-press in combination, a cylinder, a presser, two aprons running between the same, a combined apron take-up and moistening device, and means for adjusting themoistening device fordifferent degrees of moistening. I

6. In a rotary cloth-press in combination a cylinder, a presser, two absorbent aprons running between the same, means whereby the apron running in contact with the presser is dried, means whereby the other apron is moistened, and means whereby the cloth is guided in contact with said moistened apron; both said moistening and drying means being other than the presser or cylinder whereby the cloth'and the wet apron are pressed together between the dry'apron and the cylinder.

DAVID GESSNER.

Witnesses:

FRED S. KEMPER, O. E. ANDERSON. 

